dark, he would find his bed made with an alien neatness, and some- times a bottle of wine in the refrigerator, or his Martini pitcher used as a vase for a bright bouquet of flow- ers-the kind of bou- quet, in a paper cone, peddled at subway en- trances or from gloomy traffic islands. .'" "1' .I'. ..... , '" . :-:. 1 , f T HE city was slowly absorbing Ed. He had made a few friends, if not commitments, and asked that on weekends Carol send the chil- dren, those young enough still to be inter- ested, in on the train. The echoing halls of the Museum of Nat- ura] History welcomed him back from his own childhood; many of the exhibits were jazzier, and pedagogic voices talked from the walls, but the extinct creatures had not aged, and the African diora- mas still had the same air less, sus- penseful enchantment of Christmas windows along Fifth Avenue. A dry tuft of foreground grass, or a few peb- bles (geologically accurate, presum- ably) scattered to lend verisimilitude would fascinate him, as if these ig- nored details, just inches inside the great glass pane, had a secret vitality denied the stiff stuffed creatures at the center of the exhibit. When, late that winter, Pat's bubble at last broke, Ed felt well removed from the crisis, which was muffled by a snowstorm in any case. Carol kept phoning him, and severa] times a cloud of static over- whelmed her voice and the connection was broken. Apparently a maiden aunt of Pat's, who lived in the next town to the south, in one of those big Hudson River houses that had not yet been condominiumized, had seen Jason and Carol in a car together, at eight-thirty on a weekday morning. Ed knew it was their habit for Jason to miss the train that Pat had dropped him off to catch. He would walk a block or two to where Carol would pick him up, and then take the next train from the station farther down the line; in this . 4, , '- ......... ';><1 .... ." :"'-". . ...",::"-../. . ;<' 0 \ ., .,. 'i , '., ':'r.. t A" ., f\ ., J \ J 1 ) , ';:;:' '. j , i j ... . 1 . '- :' ) ."...... .:. .::,- /.. ./ .. y "* ..... < '.í :'. -.,! \. .. '" 1, , I L <. ) ....;;;:; '-.l , .".../ '" I . >'" ... I,' j ,,>.. J I It-, "* ' VI , II't .,.\\ ... ,.'" ......"Q.-v \ " .;., '" . l \, ç L 1" .--.. "\ \ I J '71t1t., \ ! \ 1 J ': "Pakes! Fakes! All total fakes! But I love everyone of them'" . way they stole a half hour for them- selves. A dangerous habit, and hardly worth it, Ed had advised Carol long ago. But this little wifely act of put- ting Jason on a train had been precious to her. The aunt, seeing them with dim eyes from her own moving car, had thought Carol must be Pat, but heavier than she had ever seen her, with bushier hair, and the car didn't seem exactly familiar either; yet there was no mistaking Jason, that long head, thin as a knife. Troubled by the possibility that she was going senile and seeing things, the innocent old lady telephoned to ask. "Evidentl y " Carol told Ed "Pat , , very coolly lied and said yes, she had been taking Jason to a different station because they had dropped off their other car at a gas station near the town line. " "What she could have said that would have been better," Ed point- ed out, "was that Jason had accepted a ride that particular morning with a woman they both know who also commutes. It happens all the time. I assume you were driving. The Hon- da. " "It needs snow tires, by the way. I . totally forgot to have them put on. I've been nearly getting killed." "Then what happened?" "Well, I guess she stewed all day but still hoped Jason would have some explanation when he came back But this image, of a fat woman with messy hair, she instantly connected with me. How do you like that for an insult?" Ed saw Carol's expression as she said this, her self-mocking face, eyes rounded, corners of her lips drawn down. It occurred to him that Pat had been snobbishly unable to believe that he and Carol, tangled and clownIsh as they were, could ever do anything that would matter , seriously, to herself and her husband. "Well, he's here. I mean, he was here He's had to go back because she isn't there, it turns out." In a flurry of static, an annoyed operator, with a black accent, came on and told them that this line was being preëmpted for an emergency call. In the imposed silence, snow continued to pile up in parallel ridges on the fire escape. The lights of upper Broadway were burning a yellow-pink patch low in the streaming sky. An occasional siren could be heard, trying to clear a path for itself, but the city was help- 45 ;# '-. )